Selectively prerender video

From the Tools menu, choose Selectively Prerender Video to render temporary preview files for the sections of your project that cannot be rendered in real time. These temporary preview files are used when you play back that section of the project.

When you perform a selective prerender, a separate preview file is created for each section of your project that needs to be prerendered. Sections that contain transitions, effects, and compositing will need to be prerendered; unprocessed DV media files will not.

TIP Selective prerendering is helpful when previewing on an external monitor. For more information, see Using an External Video Monitor

  1. Select the area of your project that you want to preview. If there is no time selection, the entire project will be used.

  2. From the Tools menu, choose Selectively Prerender Video. The Prerender Video dialog appears.

  3. Choose a template from the Template drop-down list to specify the parameters that should be used for rendering your file, or click the Custom button to create a new template. For more information, see Custom rendering templates

    4. NOTE

    • Select the Stretch video to fill output frame size (do not letterbox) checkbox when you are rendering to an output format with a slightly different aspect ratio than your project settings. This will prevent black bars from appearing on the top and bottom or the sides of the output.

    • Select the Use project output rotation setting checkbox if you're rendering a rotated project and want to use the Output rotation setting from the Project Properties dialog for your rendered file.

      When the checkbox is cleared, the media is rotated according to its Media Properties setting, but the project itself is unrotated—you can use this setting to proof your project on an unrotated display. For more information, see Creating rotated projects

    • You'll need to choose a rendering template that inserts pulldown fields to create a standard DV file if your project properties are set to 24p or if you selected the Allow pulldown removal when opening 24p DV checkbox on the General tab of the Preferences dialog. Use the NTSC DV 24p (inserting 2-3-3-2 pulldown) template if you intend to use the file on the VEGAS Pro timeline.

      If you cleared the Allow pulldown removal when opening 24p DV checkbox before adding your media and your project properties are not set to 24p, your 24p video is read as 29.97 fps interlaced video (60i), so you can choose whichever NTSC DV or PAL DV template suits your project requirements.

  4. Click the Render button. The rendering process begins and a progress box appears. When completed, a bar appears at the top of the timeline to indicate each rendered section.

NOTE Each prerendered section will consist of no more than 300 frames (approximately 40 megabytes). Because selective prerendering creates multiple files, minor editing on the timeline will not invalidate all of your prerendered video—only the sections you modify will need to be rerendered.